


a mirror that i will crawl through (and find myself waiting)

by makemelovely



Category: The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Fae & Fairies, Fairy Tale Elements, Gen, implied Bonnie/Elena, listen.... idk what this is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-10
Updated: 2019-11-10
Packaged: 2021-01-27 07:31:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21388423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/makemelovely/pseuds/makemelovely
Summary: Elena falls down a well.
Relationships: Elena Gilbert & Katherine Pierce
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3





	a mirror that i will crawl through (and find myself waiting)

Elena is running through the forest, her heart thumping in her chest like a hummingbird's heartbeat, quick and fast against her ribs. Her breaths come in short spurts, loud in the silent forest, disturbed only by the crunch of leaves underfoot and the voice calling her name.

“Elena! Elena, where are you?” Klaus calls out sinisterly, Stefan’s voice concerned, Damon’s derisive, her own voice inquiring as it drifts through the trees.

_ No, no, no. _ Elena thinks because for whatever reason, she does not want to be caught. She trips, tumbles, falls into a deep dark well. The blackness stretches forward endlessly, infinitely, and she thinks _ At least they can’t find me here. Here is a place that I can not be captured, stolen, found. I am safe here. _

The blackness lingers for a long while until Elena has lost all sense of time, the only thing keeping her company being the unfading darkness and the voice calling her name, searching for her and coming up empty.

Eventually it gives way to stone walls, dirty and crumbling. Elena’s knees press hard against cold, dirty stone, and she tips her head up to stare at the long line of darkness stretching from her fingers to forever. The voice is still searching for her, and there’s an ache in Elena’s thighs.

“Elena?” The voice asks again.

Elena sighs quietly, relief soaking into her bones. “I am here.” She is here, she is safe. At last.

“Hello, Elena.” Her voice says from behind her, but it is different. It isn’t _ the _voice, the one calling out from the endless above. It’s lower, smokey and sultry. Hoarse, even.

Elena turns, and her heart stops in her chest. Her face peers back at her, eyebrows lifting upwards, and her mouth curved all wrong, twisted in the wrong direction. Elena reaches out with shaky hands, presses them against the curve of her mouth, but it’s not _ her _mouth, you see. She forces it into a smile, but the moment she removes her hands it falters, falling apart in a matter of seconds. “Who are you?” She asks, her voice shaking almost as much as her hands are. Her voice is thin and wobbly, wavering in stilted air at the bottom of the well.

“I’m you before you were you.” Not Elena tells her, eyes glinting mischievously.

“Tell me plainly who you are.” Elena tells her courageously, drawing on the stories of little girls who talk back to monsters and defy them in the name of bravery. Bonnie always tells her she’s brave in that awed voice of hers, soft with wonder and affection and above all amazement. Elena thinks about the way she pressed her lips to Elena’s lips, tender and sad before she left the house that morning. When had that been? This morning, right? Or was it yesterday morning? Elena had fallen for a very long time, and she had been running for an awfully long time before that. Panic rises, unwelcome, in the back of Elena’s throat. Where is she? _ When _is she? Is she expected to be here long? “Can I go now?” Elena asks, and flinches as the voice calls her name again.

“Do you want to know my name or do you want to leave?” Not Elena teases her.

Elena considers the question, and for the first time she feels the pang of hunger in her gut, the twinge of pain from her scraped palms. “Both.”

“Greedy girl.” Not Elena smirks, circling her counterpart. “Wanting both. You can only have one, now which would you like? Do you value knowledge or danger?”

Elena shakes her head. “Not danger. Never danger.”

“Then you’d like to leave? Without a bite to eat or a drink to try?” Not Elena asks curiously, pressing upon her a sense of urgency that doesn’t quite fit.

“I am hungry,” Elena admits reluctantly, “But I would rather not. I would like to leave as soon as I learn your name.”

“My name comes with a cost.” Not Elena shrugs, spinning into the darkness growing around them.

_ Elena, Elena, Elena. _

“What’s your price?” She asks tentatively. “I haven’t got any coins on me.”

Not Elena’s voice echoes all around Elena. “Have a bite to eat. On me, of course. I wish to repay you for your time since you’re so eager to return home.” Not Elena drifts out of the shadows with fruit clutched in her hands.

“Okay.” A fair price, perhaps. Elena takes a bite of the offered fruit, and knowledge blooms in her body like a flower, warmth unfurling as her name echoes in the well. The fruit is sweet on her tongue, and she swallows without trouble or suspicious. “What’s your name?”

“My name is Katherine.” Katherine watches her carefully, serpentine smile on her lips.

Elena stares at them, thinks about how they look just like hers. Identical. “I must be going now. It’s getting late, and they’ll be worried.”

Katherine laughs, the sound dark. “Oh, Elena, I’m afraid you cannot go. You ate the fruit, same as I. We are trapped here.”

There’s an angry delight in Elena’s bones. “What do you mean?”

Katherine dances around her, and Elena feels compelled to join her. “They steal our names and our faces, our lives and our daylight. In return, we gain freedom and peace, free of humanity and bothers and rigid expectations. We are as we are, and we are always hungry. We are always growing, consuming, turning.”

“Why didn’t you let me leave?” Elena asks.

Katherine shrugs. “I was bored. Isn’t it better this way, though? You fell down the well, Elena. You didn’t really want to leave. I know. I could tell.” Katherine smiles, and it looks awfully pretty on her face. On Elena’s face.

On their face.

“I fell down the well,” Elena agrees, and she tips her head up to the dark tunnel. Katherine takes her hand, leading her away down a corridor she never noticed before.

Elena wakes up, safe in her bed, heart thrumming in her chest, but she doesn’t quite understand why. There’s an innate sense of wrongness, but if she focuses hard enough she can forget it.

There’s a figure perched at the end of her bed, all smiles, all sharp teeth and hunger. “Hello, Elena.” Katherine says, and the uneasiness vanishes. She presses a kiss to the corner of Elena’s mouth.

They go to the well, and Elena waits for her name.

“Elena! Elena!”

“Down here.” Elena calls up, and she waits.

They are very hungry.

“Elena?”

Her name is very close now.

**Author's Note:**

> my tumblr is @makemelovely


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